History
The potential of hydroelectric projects on the Vacha River in southern Bulgaria was recognized by the Bulgarian government at least as early as the early 1960s. The June 1962 edition of Water Power stated that the dam was "scheduled to add 436 MW to the Bulgarian system by the end of 1965." In 1964, Energy International reported that dam construction on the river was underway. It appears that development of the dam took longer than expected, eventually completed in 1975.
As the dam was designed for a maximum seismic design acceleration of 0.05 g according to the regulations apparent in Bulgaria in 1964, it was considered appropriate to study the safety of the dam structure by two dimensional finite element method under revised seismic norms prescribed in 1984, namely for two levels, the “Design Earthquake (DE)” and Maximum Credible Earthquake (MCE), taking due note of the interaction between the foundation soil and the structure and the non-linear behaviour of concrete. The seismic accelerations considered in the analysis were 0.32 g, 0.5 g and 1.1 g. The analysis concluded that the dam is safe under the seismic considerations except that partial damage could occur under the maximum seismic design factor but the dam would not fail.
In February 2012, Bulgarian Minister of Economy and Energy, Traicho Traikov began an inspection of dams in the country, amongst them Vacha and Krichim dams and the Orpheus Water Power Plant. The inspection was initiated by reports that dams in the region had been overflowing and were hazardous, and engineers in the country warned that the problem would worsen due to snow melt and cause potential flooding.
Read more about this topic: Vacha Reservoir
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